Meet the world's most dangerous terrorist

Meet the world's most dangerous terrorist

Vicky Nanjappa / Rediff.com profiles Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi aka Abu Dua, the feared leader of the terror group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and his fierce ambitionsThe American Federal Bureau of Investigation's 'most wanted' mugshot of Abu Dua carries a $10 million bounty.

The Americans had him in 2005, incarcerated him in the Camp Bucca detention facility in Iraq, and then as they prepared to leave in 2009 US military commanders deemed him fit to be shifted to Iraqi authorities.

He was soon out of jail.

Five years since then, Abu Dua is capturing city after city in Iraq leading the ruthless Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham outfit.

Baghdadi, today labelled as the world’s most dangerous terrorist, is storming Iraqi cities to establish a ‘Sunni Islamic caliphate straddling the border of Iraq and Syria’.

Meet the world's most dangerous terrorist

According to intelligence sources, Baghdadi was humble and showed no great signs of fanaticism in his early life. Then using the alias Ibrahim Awwad Ali al Badari, he reportedly earned a doctorate in Islamic studies.

He entry into the world of terror came after the US invaded Iraq. It is said that his incarceration in jail between 2005 and 2009 changed him completely and many even believe that it was the Al Qaeda terrorists in jail who radicalised him a great deal.

Born in Samarra in Iraq, the 43-year-old rose up the Al Qaeda hierarchy in 2011 when he orchestrated the attack on the Umm al-Qura mosque in Baghdad which killed a prominent Sunni lawmaker Khalid al-Fahdawi. He also claimed responsibility for a wave of suicide attacks in August that year in Mosul city that claimed 70 lives.

When the fighting in Syria intensified in 2011, Baghdadi opened a branch there and launched his operations. He was quick to gather and send around 3,000 soldiers to fight the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria.

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Image: Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant stand guard at a checkpoint in the northern Iraq city of Mosul